


The Hardest Thing

by Mobi_On_A_Mission



Series: Chopped: The 100 Fanfic Challenge [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Ableism, Canon-Typical Violence, Chopped: The 100 Fanfic Challenge, F/F, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23267494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mobi_On_A_Mission/pseuds/Mobi_On_A_Mission
Summary: After shooting Baylis and escaping to the woods, Emori was utterly alone. She travelled through the lands of the Coalition, stealing from anyone and everyone. All of that changed when she met the last sky girl after the Mountain Men wiped out the rest of her people.Harper had a map to a peaceful village across the sea, and Emori had nothing to lose.Written for Round 1 of Chopped Madness
Relationships: Emori/Harper McIntyre
Series: Chopped: The 100 Fanfic Challenge [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678093
Comments: 9
Kudos: 9
Collections: Chopped Madness





	The Hardest Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Round 1 - Harper McIntyre  
> Theme: Angst  
> Trope 1: Strangers to Lovers  
> Trope 2: Road Trip (Note that this trope does not necessitate a literal road trip)

Gunshots rang out through the forest.

Emori hadn’t heard that sound in a long time, not since the fateful day when she shot Baylis in the stomach and escaped from the Outlanders.

This time, it wasn’t just one gunshot. They rang out, one after another, until the cracks ran together into a thunder. Perhaps the Mountain Men were already there, wiping out the sky people. Emori wouldn’t be able to steal from them afterall.

It was no matter who was sounding out the gunshots. She needed to run. Emori darted through the forest, dodging the eyes and spears of Trikru warriors and the Commander’s army.

Emori found a cave where she could hide until the fighting ended and she could reconsider. She crouched behind the bend of the cave, back to the wall and knife clutched in her hand. She waited with bated breath for someone to stumble into her cave. It had happened before, and she wouldn’t hesitate to slit their throat. She had done it before.

Eventually the gunshots stopped firing. There was a single noise, an indistinguishable roar and an inferno of screams.

Then there was silence. No war cries, no screams, no gunshots. Nothing.

Emori peaked her head around the corner to see what was going on. There were Mountain Men with guns in full body suits and gas masks, running straight for the blast. The Mountain Men were a force to be reckoned with; no one had ever bested them. So _why_ were they running into a battlefield if it wasn’t their war?

Not ten minutes later, Emori heard another sound, a stumbling run near the entrance of her cave. Whoever it was seemed to take no mind to being quiet.

She watched from the shadows in the cave. A running figure passed by the cave entrance, a Skaikru girl in all black with a splash of blonde hair on her head. It was sad, really. The girl knew nothing of how to stay hidden in the woods.

The girl turned back to the cave entrance. She crept inside without so much as a knife in her hand, right to where Emori was crouching.

Emori pulled the girl down and around the corner with her, pressing one hand over her mouth and the other across her chest, restraining her arms. It was almost too easy to overpower her. Emori didn’t even need her knife.

Emori held the girl’s back tight against her chest. She tried to scream, but Emori held her mouth tighter to muffle the sound. She shushed in her ear. If she wasn’t careful, the girl would get them both discovered. Emori was good with her knife, but not _that_ good. She wouldn’t be able to fight off the Mountain Men.

It was a good thing she did, because just then there was a rush of feet past the cave entrance, and the sound of what was almost undoubtedly dragging bodies. _Mountain Men_.

It was strange. Emori had never known Mountain Men to do their own dirty work. That was the job of the Reapers. They must have seen Skaikru as a threat.

Emori couldn’t help but smile at the thought. There was nothing less threatening than the kids from the sky.

The girl kept on struggling and struggling, but Emori held her firm. She pushed her forward so her stomach was on the ground. No way was she going to let herself get discovered.

After the Mountain Men passed them and the woods were still once again, Emori whispered in the girl’s ear. “Quiet,” she said in English. “My name is Emori. I am not here to hurt you. The Mountain Men took your people. All of them, probably. And if you don’t want to be next, you need to be quiet. I am not here to hurt you. Do you understand?”

The girl nodded frantically from under her.

Emori took a deep breath and lifted herself from the girl’s back to be crouching once more.

The girl flipped her head around to Emori. There was a gash on her forehead, blood dripping down to her cheek. A flash of reproach overtook the fear on her face. “Grounder.”

 _Grounder?_ That isn’t something Emori had heard before. But she could understand what it meant. “Your fight is not with me. I have no clan. I have no war.”

“You’re not trying to kill my people?”

Emori shook her head. “You’re invaders in Trikruland. I’d imagine those are the people who have a problem with you. Me? I have no land to invade. I’m an invader too.”

The girl’s face softened behind the mess of blood. “I’m Harper by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Harper.” Emori smiled. For some reason, she felt responsible for her now. “Will you let me look at your head? You’re bleeding.”

Harper’s hand raised up to feel at her forehead. She hissed in pain. “Yeah.”

Emori motioned for her to sit down and Harper went easily, black jacket pressed against the cold cave wall. She grabbed black netting from her pocket and held it out to Emori.

Emori took it from her and poured water on it from her canteen. She dabbed at Harper’s forehead with it, trying to get the blood out. But it kept coming. The wound was too deep. “I’m gonna need to give you stitches now, okay?”

Harper nodded.

“So where did you come from, anyway? It’s not very often I meet someone from the sky.” She searched through her bag for a needle and thread.

Harper chuckled. “I guess you wouldn’t. I come from a ship called the Ark. My family is up there. My mom, at least.” She sighed. “If they aren’t all dead by now. They sent the disposable people down. A hundred juvenile prisoners. So that’s me.”

Emori was bemused. “You’re prisoners?”

Harper pressed her lips. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but yeah.”

“What did you do?” Emori couldn’t imagine such a naïve girl to be a criminal. But then again, some have thought that of her.

“I’m a thief.” Harper paused. “Or, at least, I was one. I stole.”

“I probably shouldn’t be saying this either-” Emori focused her attention on her stitching, biting on her lip. “-but I’m a thief too.”

Harper raised an eyebrow and hissed in pain. “Oh really? You sure I should trust you?”

“Not at all.” She grinned sadly. “But I’m all you have now.”

“What happened to my friends? You said the Mountain Men took them?”

Emori finished off the stitching and moved to start a fire in the cave. “The Mountain is a place of death. No one who goes in ever returns. I’m sorry, your friends are gone.”

“Gone?” A hint of tears formed in her eyes. “As in, dead?”

Emori turned away. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Harper said, tears choking her words. “I can’t accept that. Those bastards can’t just kill everyone.”

Emori worked in silence, trying to ignore Harper’s grief. She couldn’t be soft. It was weak to let the pain get to her.

“We were supposed to be okay,” Harper said, choking back tears. “We were going to a village across the sea. A safe place. Where we wouldn’t have to fight anymore.”

“Across the sea?” Emori had heard of such a place, just in passing. A Flokru village unlike all the rest. Where there were no warriors, just fishermen and doctors and poets. “How do you know they’d even take you?”

Harper let out a breath. “Maybe they wouldn’t. I heard they take anyone, but I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It was the only chance we had.”

Emori had heard that before, about another land in the sea. That one was more a lie than anything. But this one might be real. “How were you going to get there?” Finally, the logs caught fire and cast a soft light across the cave.

“I have a map.” Harper groaned as she pulled a paper from her jacket. “I copied it from Lincoln’s book.”

Emori crossed back over to her and took the paper from Harper’s hands. It was a simple map with only a few landmarks. It would be hard to find anything based on it. “This is _it_?”

“That’s all he drew.”

Emori bit her lip. A part of her wanted to try, wanted to believe she could be safe there.

She tossed the map back to Harper. “It’s useless. That could never be enough.”

Harper furrowed her brow but said nothing. She sat there for a long while, no expression behind her eyes, staring lifelessly into the flicker of the fire.

Emori left the cave to set a couple alarming traps outside before settling back inside. By the time she got back, Harper was slumped over, eyes shut and chest rising and falling softly in her sleep. The glow of the fire danced across her face even as the chill of the night made her shiver in her sleep.

Emori added more logs to the fire and settled in to sleep herself.

* * *

Emori awoke with a start when Harper sat up in the morning.

“We have to go,” Harper said. “We have to save my friends.”

“Harper, I told you. Your friends are dead. No amount of fighting is gonna change that.” It was a painful truth, but there was no avoiding it.

Harper shook her head. “I can’t accept that. I- they’re alive. They have to be.” Harper was going to get herself killed, burdened with emotion for her people.

“I wasn’t always alone, you know.”

Harper turned to look her in the eye.

“I had a brother. Otan. We had a people—outcasts like me. Mostly _frikdreina_ -” She held up her mutated hand. “-but a few banished too. It was better than being alone.” She swallowed hard. “Sometimes. We were led by a bad man. Baylis. And when Otan messed up a mark and got Baylis discovered, he… he killed him.”

Harper covered Emori’s larger hand with her own.

“And after that, I couldn’t… I just couldn’t. I had to kill Baylis.” She brought her shoulders back. “So I did. I grabbed a gun and just shot him, no second thoughts.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No.”

“Good.” Harper squeezed her hand. “He deserved it. Whatever happened, he deserved it.”

Emori nodded. “He did. But after that, I didn’t have a people, not even the fragile place I had among the Wastelanders. I’ve been on the run ever since.”

“What if you didn’t have to run anymore?” Harper sounded hopeful. “What if Luna’s village is the salvation we need?”

Emori refused to let her hopes up, but she relented.

* * *

They started off late in the morning. Harper wanted to go back to her people’s dropship, to see what was left of her home. But Emori couldn’t take that risk. The Mountain Men were known for leaving snipers to catch stragglers. She wouldn’t let Harper meet the same fate as her friends.

Along the way, Emori taught Harper the ways of the woods. How to walk, how to hunt, and how to steal. Stealing in the woods must have been different than it was on the Ark—Harper didn’t take to it quickly.

Or maybe that’s why Harper got caught. Emori didn’t ask.

They walked north and then south, around the stretch of sea that cut into the land. They stayed far enough away from the roads that they wouldn’t be noticed by anyone who passed by. Emori taught Harper the simplest con she knew: stealing from merchants on the road. Even a sky girl could play dead.

Emori tried not to focus on the pang of her heart when a merchant pulled a knife to go investigate Harper. Emori wasn’t weak. She didn’t have that luxury.

It wasn’t long before they reached the sea. No matter how many times she saw it, the sea never failed to take Emori’s breath away. The salty aroma in the air, the strip of silver where the water met the sky on the horizon, and the openness of everything. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever experienced.

None of that beauty compared to that of the girl standing beside her. Harper’s jaw dropped open and her eyes grew wide. Seeing the sea with _her_ , it was like Emori was seeing it for the first time.

They still couldn’t find the village. On Harper’s map, there were stones, stacked on top of each other in a circle. They looked up and down the shoreline, but there were no stones.

So they kept walking. They walked south, following the shoreline but keeping themselves confined to the woods. There villages on the shore, each one full of people who would have Emori dead if they saw her.

They followed the shoreline to the southern tip of the peninsula. They still hadn’t found the stack of rocks.

“Maybe we should just go back and try to save my friends,” Harper said. “This is hopeless, we’ll never find it.”

Emori convinced her to keep going, and so they did. Back up the shoreline. They passed the spot they had come to in the first place and continued north. Harper was there all the way, smiling all the while.

She was different at night. They’d curl up together next to the fire to sleep, to keep their body temperature up through the chill of the night, and Harper had nightmares.

Too many times to count, Emori awoke in the middle of the night to Harper screaming, clutching onto her or lashing out and pushing her away. Either way, Emori dealt with it. She shushed her and coaxed her and told her it wasn’t real, that she was there to protect her, and everything was going to be okay.

Maybe it was a lie, but it was all she could do. Emori knew she was powerless against the forces of the Coalition or the Mountain Men, but she lied to Harper to make her feel safe. She just wanted Harper to feel safe.

In the evenings, when it was too dark to keep walking and they were too tired anyway, they curled up in the few furs they owned. They talked about anything and everything. As tired as Emori was at the end of the night, she never wanted to go to sleep. At least she got to do it in Harper’s arms.

Sometimes Harper would braid Emori’s hair in the evenings. It was something Otan used to do for her, before Baylis killed him and ruined everything. It was in those moments that she felt the most vulnerable. She told Harper of how she was cast out of her clan as an infant, how she knew no life before the Outlanders took her in. How they taught her to pick pockets by the age of two or three, how to go into villages and steal from them because no one would expect a little kid to steal from them. How she was beaten and starved and nearly left to rot when she messed up. But she was lucky. They let her live. She was too useful to kill, with her deformity on her hand rather than her face. It made her easier to blend in.

They were sleeping in a cave not far from a Flokru village when it was Emori who woke up in tears. Harper tried to help her through it, but Emori walked away. She had to leave the cave and sit out by herself in the woods. She couldn’t show her weakness.

Emori came back with handfuls of red berries to share with Harper. But when she came, Harper wasn’t there. All her stuff was, but _she_ wasn’t.

Emori thought that Harper had left her, but then she saw her knife laying on the floor of the cave. Harper never went anywhere without it. Not just for a walk, not just to pee, nothing. She was gone and it wasn’t her choice.

Harper had been kidnapped.

Emori knew what she was supposed to do. The Outlanders had taught her what to do when someone went missing. If they were disposable, you did nothing. If they were worth it, though, you grab your team and make a plan to go after them.

But Emori was alone. She didn’t have anyone else. Just her own two hands and a dull knife. She had no idea what Harper was up against. If she went after Harper, they both might die.

It was probably better if she did nothing. Harper wasn’t useful. She wasn’t good at stealing. She wasn’t good with her knife. She was a good shot with a gun, but guns were risky. That wasn’t a useful skill to have.

So Emori grabbed her things and set off on her own.

She walked for an hour, tears streaming down her face. She was weak. So weak. How could she let herself hurt like this? It’s not like Harper would go to save her if she were kidnapped. _Right?_

It hit her. Of _course_ Harper would go after her if she were kidnapped. She’d probably get herself killed in the process, but she would go. She was so brave, so kind, so inexplicably strong despite how emotionally attached she was to everything and everyone. She would do anything to save Emori.

Emori wanted to survive, she wanted to survive so much. But it was beginning to feel like she wouldn’t be living at all without Harper by her side.

She couldn’t bear to go on, not if she didn’t even try to go after Harper. She didn’t care if she was being weak anymore. Emori loved Harper. She needed to go after her.

So she turned around to go back.

There were two possibilities for who had taken Harper. The first was the Mountain. The thought of going up against the Reapers chilled Emori to her core. But she would do it for Harper.

The second possibility was Trikru or the Commander’s army. They might be even worse.

She wiped the tears from her face and went back to the cave, as quickly as she could. It didn’t take long to get back there, now that she was on a mission. It was a good sign Harper was missing and not left dead in the cave. That meant they wanted her for something.

There were no real clues in the cave, so it couldn’t be Reapers. They always left a trail, some sort of clue that they’d been there. This was clearly the work of someone else.

It had to be the village. It _had_ to be. Emori had been nervous about sleeping so near to a village, but she thought it was gonna be okay. She never thought someone would take Harper.

Emori resecured her glove around her hand, put on the facade of a travelling merchant, and made her way to the village. For the most part, she avoided going into villages. Especially since she was with Harper. Villages were risky. Too many people, everyone knew everyone else, and Harper wouldn’t go unnoticed. She didn’t know the ways of their people.

Emori took a deep breath and strided into the village. Every nerve in her body was screaming for her to run into the village center screaming for Harper, but her training was telling her otherwise. She had to do this carefully, or she’d get herself killed along with Harper.

All she needed to do was keep her hand out of view and distract the villagers with her goods and fanciful stories of faraway places she’d seen in her travels. Emori was good at that. As long as she could keep her mind off Harper, she could talk to the villagers and they’d give her the information she needed. They didn’t even know they were doing it, but they told her exactly what she needed to know.

By the time the sun was falling and Emori was making a show of packing up her remaining things, she knew exactly what to do to save Harper.

Harper was being kept for the Commander. The sky people had killed hundreds of Trikru warriors, so there was hell to pay with the Coalition. But that was actually a good thing. It meant there was time before the real threats got her. The people who captured her were just Flokru. Emori could overtake them. The Commander was sending people to retrieve Harper and take her to Polis. They would arrive the next day.

She found out where they were keeping Harper, and that they weren’t keeping her heavily guarded. The warriors in the village were part time, fishermen who were occasionally called to battle. There would only be one watching Harper while everyone else slept.

Emori took her chance. She left the village, dumped her things in the woods outside, and waited for them to go to sleep. Everyone in the village moved back into their homes and settled into bed for the night. The village was silent.

Emori crept to the old wooden shed where they were holding Harper, on the edge of the village closest to the woods. _Perfect_. She peered in through a crack in the door. There was only one man inside, and a huddled figure on the floor with a mess of blonde hair on her head. _Harper_.

She clutched her knife tight in her hand and waited for the warrior to turn his back on the door. The second he did, she kicked the door open and put her knife to his throat.

The gag in Harper’s mouth muffled her scream. The warrior was half a foot taller than Emori and twice as heavy. He bucked under her weight but she held on, pressing her knife far enough into his neck to draw blood. She kicked his knees and he fell to the ground, her knife still at his throat.

She caught Harper’s eye then, from past her captor. Harper’s eyes flashed with relief, and her choked screams turned to muffled whimpers. Her bound arms and legs stopped struggling, and she relaxed into her bounds.

Emori raised her knife from his throat and knocked him in the head with the back of it. He collapsed on the floor, cheek dragging against the splintered wooden planks.

Emori stepped over his unconscious body and rushed to Harper. She crouched in front of her and pulled the gag from her mouth.

“Mori…” Harper was breathless. “You came for me. I didn’t-”

Emori sliced the ties that bound her wrists to her ankles. “I came for you.”

“You took so long, I didn’t think- I thought I was alone.”

Emori smoothed Harper’s hair off her sweaty forehead with the thumb on her larger hand. “I’ll always come for you.”

Harper brought her hands up to cup Emori’s jaw.

Emori’s heart skipped a beat. Harper smiled bright, so much brighter than she had any right to smile when she was kneeling right next to the unconscious body of her captor. But that was Harper. She was always light, so light, so light… She was the sun.

Harper leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips. Emori responded immediately, her right hand coming up to tangle in Harper’s hair at the base of her neck. Kissing Harper felt like coming home.

But Harper didn’t know everything, didn’t know how long Emori walked before she turned around to come save her.

Emori pulled away. Harper chased her lips, but Emori pressed a hand to her collarbone to hold her back. “There are things you don’t know, Harper.” She shook her head. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

Harper’s face fell. “Emori, I-”

“Come on,” Emori snapped. “It’s not safe here.”

They didn’t say another word as they slipped out into the forest. Didn’t say a word as they picked up their things from the woods and the cave, didn’t say anything at all until they reached another cave to spend the rest of the night, this one far away from a village.

Emori shrugged off her clothes and handed them to Harper. “Here,” she said. “Take my clothes. I can’t have them capturing you with that brand on your shoulder.”

Harper ripped the symbol off the sleeve of her jacket, but traded clothes all the same.

Emori couldn’t cuddle into her that night like she usually did. It was too painful to look at her and to touch her, knowing how close she had been to leaving her just that morning. Instead, she stared out the mouth of the cave, Harper’s back to her own.

It was the coldest night Emori had felt in years.

* * *

Things went back to normal in the morning, mostly. Harper was cheery as ever, though Emori could tell there was something else going on beneath the surface. But they were good. They were really good. It hurt, to love someone Emori didn’t deserve. But she would do all she could to keep Harper safe.

They had to find the village across the sea, so they kept on walking. It took awhile, especially with Emori’s extra precautions to keep Harper safe. She didn’t care if it took a thousand years, if she could get Harper to safety.

They saw it far off on the horizon, a handful of stacked stones rising out of the earth. Emori nearly shouted with glee at the sight of it. She turned to Harper, who was even more awestruck than she was the day they first reached the sea. It was hard to keep herself from running to the village.

Until there was no village. It was another dead end.

They sat on the ground, out in the open, Harper’s head on Emori’s shoulder as she stroked her hair. Emori let herself gaze off into space, barely registering the world around her.

 _The plants_. She jolted up, pushing Harper off her. “It’s the plants, Harper, oh my _god_ it’s the plants. They burn green. We need to make a signal fire.”

* * *

They watched from the shoreline as five masked men emerged from the depths of the sea.

Emori held her hands up in surrender and Harper echoed her motion. “We’re looking for Luna,” she said in Trig. “Lincoln sent us.”

“Lincoln?” The one in the middle said. The men murmured amongst themselves. “Very well. We shall take you to her.”

The shorter man to his side whispered in his ear.

“Unsheathe your hand,” he amended. Emori’s heart sped up in her chest. _No, this couldn’t be happening. Just when she thought they’d gotten their lucky break._

Harper yelled in defiance. “Why?”

“We will not let a stain onto the rig. _Frikdreina_ have no place among us,” he sneered.

Slowly as to not provoke them, Emori turned to Harper and dropped her hands to her shoulders. “Go,” she said. “You’ll be safe there.”

Tears formed on Harper’s cheeks as she cupped Emori’s face. “But what about you, Mori?”

Emori shook her head and rested her forehead against Harper’s. This was quite possibly the hardest thing she had even done in her life. “I’ll be fine, okay? Don’t worry about me. You’re safe now, Harper. My job is done.”

Before she could protest, Emori closed the last couple inches between their mouths in a searing kiss. She couldn’t give it all she had, not under the circumstances, but her head spun all the same. If this was the last chance she’d ever have to have Harper in her arms, she was going to make it count. Tears welled in her eyes and smeared against Harper’s skin as they kissed.

Emori pulled away and turned her back to Harper. She walked away, back into the woods, not sparing a glance behind her.

As it turned out, walking away was the hardest thing Emori ever did.

**Author's Note:**

> Did someone say rare pair? Hell yeah they did. I love these babes, and it's been a lot of fun to explore their relationship a bit more. I'm a sucker for happy endings, so I like to think things turned out well for them in the end, but this is supposed to be an angst fic so I couldn't make it as fluffy as I wanted. And _oh_ , how I wanted!
> 
> This is far from the only Chopped fic that was written this round! Voting is no longer open, but there's a bunch of great fics out there. I highly recommend going to the collection page to read some :)
> 
> -Mobi <3


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